§ Mr. Peter Emeryasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to see that all fit prisoners have the opportunity to do a full week's work.
§ Mr. BrookeI attach great importance to this. In all central, regional and open prisons the working hours are already about 40 a week. In the overcrowded local prisons it is very difficult to achieve a full working week, but I have given instructions that, as a first step, a minimum working week of 30 hours is to be established everywhere as quickly as possible. Good progress towards this has already been made by building more prison workshops, recruiting more staff, obtaining more orders for prison industries and improving the industrial organisation. A year ago the number of prisoners in local prison workshops working less than 30 hours a week was about 8,500. It has been brought down already to about 6,000.